Perhaps the boldest of thieves would never think of stealing from a courtroom under the very nose of its judge!... Yet that is what happened in one of the courts of a certain town in Sweden. While the session was in progress, a person entered the hall and began taking down the wall clock. The judge rebuked him, but the man explained that he would have no other opportunity to come and take the clock away for repair; whereupon the judge allowed him to finish his work. So he dismounted the clock, carried off its parts, and walked out in perfect safety.
After the session was over, the judge asked certain officials what was meant by sending the clockmaker at the very hour the court was sitting to take the clock away — and it quickly came out that the supposed clockmaker was nothing but a thief who had stolen the clock by his droll ruse, and no trace of him was ever found afterward!
The Eiffel Tower is counted among the prides of the people of Paris, and of the French in general, and it is the pilgrimage-place of everyone who visits the French capital. But the promoters of enterprises, eager for gain, have not looked upon it in that light; they have reckoned it rather a means of reaping abundant profit. And so they lately proposed to the French government that it sell it to them for an enormous sum, on the understanding that they would install, on its various stories, a cabaret, a dance hall, and a restaurant. On this occasion we recall that some sixty years ago certain American men of money put up a luxurious hotel near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. They then thought to hold a dance to advertise this hotel, and asked the French authorities to permit them to illuminate the Arc de Triomphe by night with brilliant lights, in return for a stated fee; but the French authorities refused the request. And we can only suppose that they will now likewise refuse the request to sell the Eiffel Tower for the setting up of a cabaret inside it!
A good deed has come to light for Field Marshal Goering, who now stands on the list of Nazi leaders arraigned before the international tribunal at Nuremberg. This good deed might avail him much in his own defense; but in all likelihood he will not mention it and will not admit to it — indeed, he may well deny it altogether — even though one of the British newspapers has recorded it.
The particulars are that certain military commanders agreed on getting rid of Hitler in the year 1937, and plotted a conspiracy to that end — the German General Halder recounted its details when called upon to do so. At that point Goering wished to get in touch with Mr. Chamberlain, to inform him of the imminent riddance of Hitler and to avert the war whose omens had appeared in his policy. Goering did in fact send a messenger, one of his intimates, to Lord Vansittart, bearing a message to that effect; but that lord had by then lost Chamberlain's confidence and goodwill, and so the message never reached its destination.
The earth, for all its breadth, has grown too narrow, and some Americans have taken to looking for dwellings for themselves on the planets!
Yes indeed. Ever since the invention of the atomic bomb, and the display of its prodigious power, and the talk that it will one day make communication with the planets possible, hundreds of letters have come pouring in upon the American government, in which the writers claim for themselves plots of land on the moon and inquire about the "procedures" to be followed in order to reserve those lands...